1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for managing multiple credentials in a distributed system. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for associating multiple sets of credentials with a user account in a distributed authentication system that allows users to uniquely authenticate themselves using the credentials that are most appropriate to a particular service and/or access device.
2. Background and Relevant Art
The explosive growth of the Internet and related technologies has resulted in a great number of computer based services that are available to consumers. Web portals, instant messaging, and email are examples of those services. In addition to the growth experienced by these services, advancing technology has provided a number of different devices through which these services may be accessed. Generally, these services are accessed through desktop or laptop computers. Increasingly, however, many of these services are being accessed and used through other devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the like.
Many of these computer based services, for both their own protection and for the protection of their users, need to be able to identify or authenticate the users that access or use their services. Often, computer based services perform user identification by requiring the user to provide credentials. Credentials typically include, for example, a combination of a user name and a password that uniquely identify a user to the service. When a user supplies credentials to a computer based service, the computer based service is able to authenticate and verify the user because the computer based service is reasonably sure that only that user is able to provide that particular credential.
One problem that often presents itself in these situations is related to the access devices that are used to access a computer based service. More specifically, the problem is related to the credentials that a user must supply in order to sign or log in to a computer based service. Credentials have to be entered into the access device when a user is signing in to a computer based service. Different devices have different form factors as well as different data input capabilities and while providing credentials on one device may be a relatively straightforward task, providing the same credentials on another device may prove to be a burdensome task.
For example, assume that a user has an email account and that the user is able to access the email account using the following credential:                Username: Joe@emailservice.com        Password: myPAssword.        
When the user attempts to access their email account from a desktop computer, the credential can be quickly and easily entered using the keyboard because the user is able to quickly and easily select and enter upper/lower case letters as well as special characters. In contrast, when the user attempts to access their email account from their cellular phone, the task of logging in by entering this credential becomes significantly more difficult. The user is typically required to “triple-tap” on the numbers in order to select each letter in both the username and the password, navigate complex menu systems to select upper/lower case letters, and find symbols such as the “@” character. If the user desires to access their email account from their cellular phone, then the user is required to spend the time needed to enter the credential on the input restricted device because the email account can only be accessed with this credential.
Another problem that is related to credentials is that the user is often required to provide different credentials when accessing different services. In other words, the credentials that are supplied to one service may not be valid credentials at another service. One reason is that the username selected at one service may already be taken by another user at another service. Thus, the user is often required to select a different credential for each service. As a user accumulates more credentials for use with more services, it is more difficult for the user to remember which credentials correspond to which service. Users are thus faced with responsibility of remembering all of their credentials and of using those credentials with devices that have limited data input.